Former Minister of Health rebuffs feminist arguments for abortion in Peru

Lima, Peru, Oct 15, 2009 / 05:15 pm (CNA).- Peru’s former Minister of Health, Luis Solari, last week rebuffed the arguments of feminist organizations that are pushing for the legalization of abortion in the country. In his response, Solari lamented that these groups are encouraging women, whom they supposedly defend, “to kill their own children.”

During a televised debate on October 11, Solari confronted Gina Yanez, director of the Manuela Ramos feminist group, which is pushing for the legalization of abortion in Peru.

He explained that many of these organizations are receiving foreign money in order to promote abortion in the South American country, and that the feminists' claims that 400,000 clandestine abortions took place in the country last year are false.

Solari said that in 1994, reports showed that “there were 54,000 abortions in Peru, and they multiplied that by five, and in 2006 they multiplied it by seven. On the basis of what?” he asked.

“I was Minister of Health and I looked up these figures. The figures that appear in this official deception do not exist anywhere in the Ministry of Health,” he said.

Referring later to eugenic abortion, Solari explained that in other countries this is the pretext used to detect the presence of Down’s Syndrome in babies in order to have them aborted.

Addressing Yanez, Solari pointed out that she has publicly stated that introducing abortion in cases of rape or deformation “is the first step towards decriminalizing abortion because that is what this woman’s organization sponsors all over the place.”

After noting that it is immoral to promote the death of an unborn child, Solari reminded Yanez that her organization “receives foreign aid,” from countries that do not ascribe to all of the laws in Peru that defend the unborn. Yanez responded by saying, “That has nothing to do with it!”

“It has everything to do with it,” Solari countered, “because your organization is receiving money from countries that do not have these laws. Why are these countries encouraging us to abort our people? Let them keep aborting in their own countries, although I am against that as well,” he said.

“We must be clear. Peru belongs to the Peruvians. The rights of women contain duties, all rights have duties. The right of a mother includes the duty to defend the life of her child,” Solari said.

“I cannot comprehend how there can be women (like those of the Manuela Ramos organization) who encourage other women to kill their own children,” he added.